Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women

154 Chapter 12
The next 10
years provide a
new window of
opportunity to
take action on a
global scale to
achieve gender
equality and
empower women
And it must incorporate into the budget framework new dimensions of costs
and expenditures that are not typically included, such as the unpaid care of
children, the elderly and sick, provided by women (Sharp 2003).
Finally, the public sector management strategy for implementation of the
three-year poverty reduction strategy and the 10-year framework, with its
focus on transparency, accountability, and results-based management, should
include processes that allow stakeholders committed to gender equality to participate
in meaningful ways. For example, women’s organizations and other
civil society groups that promote gender equality must be given full information
and be able to participate in formal feedback mechanisms through which
accountability can be exercised.
Conclusion
Much of what has been covered in this chapter has been known for several
decades. But it has been difficult to translate this knowledge into development
policy and practice at the scale required to bring about a fundamental transformation
in the distribution of power, opportunity, and outcomes for both
women and men. The next 10 years provide a new window of opportunity to
take action on a global scale to achieve gender equality and empower women
as part of meeting all the Millennium Development Goals. Governments and
international organizations can provide an enabling environment to make this
possible. Women’s organizations need the space and resources to bring about
the societal transformations that remove the constraints, fulfill the potential,
and guarantee the rights of women in all countries. The recommendations in
this chapter can pave the way toward that future.